Will the high-tech cities of the future be utterly lonely?

Humans are inherently social animals, and our health
suffers if we're cut off from social ties. So it's no wonder the so-called
loneliness "epidemic" is being called a public health crisis. But as
we sit on the cusp of massive technological advances, the near future could
exacerbate this growing problem.

Loneliness can happen to anyone. It is indiscriminate of
age, country, and social status. In Britain, more than one in eight people say
they don't consider anyone a close friend, and the number of Americans who say
they have no close friends has roughly tripled in recent decades. A large
proportion of the lonely are young; almost two-thirds of 16 to 24-year-old
Brits said they feel lonely at least some of the time, while almost a third are
lonely often or all the time.

One pervasive source of our loneliness is technology.
While it offers an easy way to keep in contact with friends — and meet new
people through dating and friendship apps — technology's omnipresence
encourages shallow conversations that can distract us from meaningful,
real-life, interactions. Researchers at the University of Essex found that
having a phone nearby, even if we don't check it, can be detrimental to our
attempts at connecting with others. Smartphones have transformed post office
lines from a chance for some small-talk with the neighbors to an exercise in
email-checking, and sealed the fate of coffee shops as nothing more than places
of mutual isolation. And technology will only become more ingrained in our
lives.

By 2050, more than 66 percent of the world's population
will be living in so-called "smart cities." These are metropolitan
areas where everything will be digitally connected. Today, some people have
"smart" thermostats, refrigerators, or smoke detectors. Tomorrow,
we'll have smart hospitals, farms, and highways, and it's likely they'll all
talk to one another. Connected devices will monitor everything from air quality
to energy usage and traffic congestion.

Smart city seeds are already being planted around the
world. A council in London has an intelligent personal assistant designed to
help residents locate information, and the world's first driverless bus service
has already come to the French city of Lyon. A hotel in Japan has deployed
human-like robots called "actroids," according to a report by the
International Bar Association. They've been greeting and serving guests since
last year, and have plans to introduce enough to replace up to 90 percent of
its employees.

While smart, connected cities could be great for
efficiency, some worry they could be putting technology before humanity. One
looming concern is the rise of automation — which will lie at the heart of our
smart future — and subsequent job losses for us humans. Around 47 percent of
U.S. jobs are already "at risk" of being automated in the next 20
years, according to one paper. Another report found that 29 percent of admin
and support services jobs, and 72 percent of transport and storage jobs in London,
are at "high risk" of automation.

We can also expect more part-time work, distance working,
and the blurring of our work and personal lives. Some worry that the rise of
robots could force governments to legislate for quotas of human workers.

But city-dwellers will see incremental changes outside of
their workspace, too. Thanks to self-service checkouts and home delivery
services, technology is creating less of a need for us to actually interact
with those around us. Message bots, like Google Assistant, Siri, and Amazon's
Alexa, will soon be able to suggest restaurants, hotels, and other local
landmarks. This is already happening in places like Tel Aviv, where everyone
over the age of 13 can receive personalized data, such as traffic information,
and can access free municipal Wi-Fi in 80 public zones. Populations will be
encouraged to make good use of these ever-personalized digital services, since
this gives companies our precious data, which will be integral to smart cities.

Devices will also become more human-like. The prospect of
cities becoming sentient is "fast becoming the new reality,"
according to one paper. But in a future where robots sound and objects look
increasingly sentient, we might be less inclined to seek out behaviors to abate
our loneliness. Indeed, one recent study titled "Products as pals"
found that exposure to or interaction with anthropomorphic products — which
have characteristics of being alive — partially satisfy our social needs, which
means the human-like robots of tomorrow could kill our dwindling urge to be
around other humans.

Not all is lost, though. Helene Joffe, a professor of
psychology at University College London, told a Guardian panel, "When we
ask people to think about their city aspirations, we find social connectedness
comes out top of the list. People want to be part of a community in
cities."

It's true, some people are attempting to reverse the
loneliness epidemic. Vancouver has launched initiatives to tackle isolation
after a survey revealed a quarter of residents felt lonely at times, and the
most lonely were aged 24 to 34. Isolation is also being tackled as a byproduct
of the emission-lowering incentive of car-pooling.

But it's doubtful that these interventions will be enough
to counteract further encroachment of technology on cities' infrastructure.
Resistance needs to be on a grander scale. One solution may lie in the preservation
of public spaces such as parks, community centers, cafes, and shops. "If
cities are to remain viable places for people to develop the strong
associational and social life fundamental to healthy human existence they must
incorporate a range of public spaces and 'third' places outside of work and
home, in which urban citizens can come together," writes John
Bingham-Hall, a researcher at London School of Economics and Political Science.

As tech companies develop creative solutions to make
cities more efficient, we can only hope they'll be mindful to the effects of
change on city-dwellers' wellbeing; after all, loneliness, and the health
ailments that come with it, isn't conducive to the productive economies we need
to solve the problems of the future.

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